Comments on: Google and China's Censorship War, Spiderman 4 Canceled and June is Soon for the New iPhone

By: Sally

Sally — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:28:50 +0000

I don’t have an Xbox and have no first-hand experience of XBL, but from what my friends tell me, even mentioning you’re a girl on your profile is asking for trouble, and mentioning that you’re gay (either gender) is tantamount to a request for a torrent of abuse.

I’m intrigued about why the vocabulary of these things defaults to high-school-level slurs, when the demographics suggest that most players should be old enough to know better.

I don’t play WoW, but play another MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI. I’ve made loads of gay friends through it, and can think of only one two instances of even mild homophobia. Whether I’ve just been lucky I don’t know, but one thing that slightly differentiates FFXI from WoW is that all the servers are global, so you get a bigger mix of nationalities and cultures. I don’t know if this mix actively creates a more liberal environment (there’s definitely a sizeable amount of tension between the western and japanese player-base), or I just haven’t learnt all the words for fag yet in spanish, japanese etc…

I’d be interested in hearing of others’ experience in different online settings where they HAVEN’T had any anti-gay slurs, to try and work out the environments where people behave like grown-ups, and not like 13-year-old boys.

By: taylor

taylor — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:48:28 +0000

you shoullllld take a peek! just one peek! in fact, i am taking a peek at this moment myself.

By: laura

laura — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:45:33 +0000

i’ve never played WoW and don’t really know what it is, but sometimes taylor makes me want to take a peek at it.

By: Alex!

Alex! — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:13:36 +0000

MW2 is 10 times worse than halo, imo. TGFTM – thank gawd for toggle mute. Even my friends use sexist, homophobic, & racial slurs; it’s become way too natural. (Luckily I know where they live & can kick them in the shins next time I see them.) Nevertheless, that cute little kitten makes all the bad melt away. Aww

By: soapbox

soapbox — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:44:18 +0000

I think this whole china thing is fascinating. Companies have alway wielded power inside government but to have Google shame China into changing their policy would be something incredible. I think for that to happen though there needs to be more traction in mainstream media outlet,s the NY Times is covering it but not front page.

By: soapbox

soapbox — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:36:07 +0000

If XBL is the cess pool of the internet then MW2 is the dregs of xbl. The amount of verbal vomit that is spewed constantly is alarming. was that graphic enough for you guys? Good thing it is so easy to mute people…

By: kimbit

kimbit — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:04:48 +0000

THANK GOODNESS re: Spider-Man. I have been hoping they would do this since the second one blew my mind with awful-ness.
Kirsten Dunst though, she will be missed.

By: RachelwasHere

RachelwasHere — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:16:55 +0000

Reports are saying that they believe the attacks were from either Chinese gov’t officials or “proxies” thereof. But I think making it about censorship rather than intellectual property of large corporations allows Google to instantly get broad Western support for themselves while putting the Chinese gov’t in a difficult position (and some sites suggest that Google’s comparatively low market share there might have even more to do with the situation than the attacks).

The Chinese gov’t cut Google service for an hour last summer while pressuring them to further limit their search results. All this while domestically the government was forced to slightly backpedal on and delay implementing its plan to require installation of Green Dam censorship software on all computers due to public criticism (they’re also being sued by a US company saying the program stole code). It’s not like anyone in China is at all unaware of censorship, but it could be an major embarrassment to the government to have a major Western company say they are pulling out because of it.
V. interested to see how things develop!

By: stars

stars — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:43:51 +0000

Yeah, do not go there..I had a wee look then thought that maybe it wasn’t the best idea so clicked the red x pretty swiftly!

By: Emily

Emily — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:39:58 +0000

Oh man, Kirsten Dunst is one of the best parts of the Spider Man movies.

By: taylor

taylor — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:37:29 +0000

yeah, def good point about the google thing. like, who doesn’t know about china’s egregious rights violations? and fuck, china’s a huge market. i am surprised it’s worth pulling out of there, but then again i haven’t fully (at all) versed myself in the controversy yet!

By: RachelwasHere

RachelwasHere — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:18:22 +0000

I kind of want to go back and major in computer science, except the part where I don’t plan to use it but just want to know it. Which isn’t worth tuition. How the intertubes work is well over my head at the mo. :s

But I can’t get over how so many sources are spinning this whole Google v. China thing as some sort of Google stand for human rights and focus on the email hacking. PLEASE. Google has always known China’s awful record on human rights and they know that censorship helps allow atrocities to continue. This clearly has everything to do with the intellectual property side of things. They “targeted at least 34 companies in the technology, financial and defense sectors” according to that article and THAT is what the pull-out threat is about. Not the subject lines of activists’ e-mails.

That cat graphic was so cute it made me squeal. And only hours ago I was making a passionate argument as to why it is dumb of us to have domesticated anything with retractable claws. But it’s so cute with it’s controller!